Hillsides about Walden begin to wear autumnal tints in the cooler air.

October 3

The white pines are now getting to be pretty generally parti-colored, the lower yellowing needles ready to fall. 

The sumachs are generally crimson (darker than scarlet), and young trees and bushes by the water and meadows are generally beginning to glow red and yellow. 

Especially the hillsides about Walden begin to wear these autumnal tints in the cooler air. These lit leaves, this glowing, bright-tinted shrubbery, is in singular harmony with the dry, stony shore of this cool and deep well. 

The frost keeps off remarkably. I have seen none, though I hear that there was some two or three mornings ago. 

I detect the crotalaria behind the Wyman site, by hearing the now rattling seeds in its pods as I go through the grass, like the trinkets about an Indian's leggins, or a rattlesnake.

H. D. Thoreau, Journal, October 3, 1856

The white pines . . . parti-colored, the lower yellowing needles ready to fall. See October 3, 1852 ("The pine fall, i.e. change, is commenced, and the trees are mottled green and yellowish."); October 3, 1858 ("White pines fairly begin to change.")  See also November 9, 1850 (" I expect to find that it is only for a few weeks in the fall after the new leaves have done growing that there are any yellow and falling, — that there is a season when we may say the old pine leaves are now yellow, and again, they are fallen."); See also A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau, The October Pine Fall

The sumachs are generally crimson (darker than scarlet). See October 2, 1853 ("The smooth sumach is but a dull red."); October 2, 1856 ("The mountain sumach now a dark scarlet quite generally.")

Especially the hillsides about Walden begin to wear these autumnal tints in the cooler air. See  October 3, 1858 ("About the pond I see maples of all their tints, and black birches (on the southwest side) clear pale yellow; and on the peak young chestnut clumps and walnuts are considerably yellowed.") See also October 1, 1852 ("The young and tender trees begin to assume the autumnal tints more generally,"); October 1, 1854 ("The young black birches about Walden, next the south shore, are now commonly clear pale yellow, very distinct at distance, like bright-yellow white birches, so slender amid the dense growth of oaks and evergreens on the steep shores."); Compare October 2, 1853 ("There are but few and faint autumnal tints about Walden yet. The smooth sumach is but a dull red.")

The frost keeps off remarkably. Compare October 1, 1860 ("Remarkable frost and ice this morning . . . I do not remember such cold at this season.")

I detect the crotalaria . . . by hearing the now rattling seeds in its pods. See October 3, 1858 ("As I go through the Cut, I discover a new locality for the crotalaria, being attracted by the pretty blue-black pod . . . It is interesting to consider how that crotalaria spreads itself, sure to find out the suitable soil. One year I find it on the Great Fields and think it rare; the next I find it in a new and unexpected place. It flits about like a flock of sparrows, from field to field.") See also August 1, 1856 ("Crotalaria . . . out, and some pods fully grown.");  September 9, 1852 ("Those crotalaria pods would make pretty playthings for children.")

October 3. See A Book of the Seasons,  by Henry Thoreau,  October 3 

These lit glowing leaves

by the dry stony shore of

this cool and deep well.

Parti-colored pines –

lower yellowing needles

getting ready to fall.

A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau,  Hillsides about Walden

 A Book of the Seasons, by Henry Thoreau

"A book, each page written in its own season,

out-of-doors, in its own locality."

 ~edited, assembled and rewritten by zphx ©  2009-2026

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